That’s right, behold the majesty of Lincoln-Mercury division’s compact sedan. Feel the road-hugging weight! Brace yourself for the devastating surge from the mighty 250! Cower in fear before the enormous bumper! Seriously, did you see the size of that thing?

Oddly, although Robert Owen, the sole owner, didn’t plump for power brakes on this 1976 Mercury Comet, he did add a number of appearance and convenience options – vinyl roof, what might be a cassette player, window tinting.

Steve “General” Zogg has this no-reserve, 17,000-mile (!) car as part of a sale this Saturday, and beyond value, it raises the question, who loves the unloved?

V-8 Mavericks have at least a small following, but a six-cylinder Comet? Let us be perfectly honest: This was not a wonderful car. It ‘s 3,000 pounds and 90hp from the optional Big Six, and the driving experience is really not so great, especially when you’ve got a column shifted automatic and manual brakes.

So are age, condition and rarity sufficient to make a car collectible? It didn’t “save” Lincoln Mercury, it was about as far from groundbreaking design as you can get and was entirely a rebadged Ford near the end of the model’s run.

I say, that’s the whole point. It is unloved now as it was then, essentially forgotten and important only in the sense that it’s a souvenir of the nadir of the industry. We were deep in the years of malaise, and these were our cars. It’s having its very own “crisis of confidence,” and in case you’ve forgotten, President Carter used that phrase in a speech in which he specifically addressed the automobile, saying, “I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit…” This is what he had in mind for you to drive when you did make that trip, a car that would remind you that you shouldn’t be enjoying your drive.

As a relic of those times, it makes us deeply uncomfortable, especially today when much of what Carter said is once again true. There have been innumerable lousy cars over the years, and many are popular today (anything from England or Italy, for instance). It’s not the car as a physical object we eschew, it’s the cultural baggage it carries. Reagan’s optimism soon carried the day, but it couldn’t make the Seventies un-happen, and our cars from those years deserve to survive. After all, we drove what we made.

31 Responses to “Not a Maverick: Save this Comet, McGraw, New York”

In 1971 I bought a bare bones 2 door Comet with the V-8 and H-D suspension. Swapped in Mustang hi-back buckets, wheels from a wrecked Cougar Eliminator, built up the 302, Hurst shifter, rebuilt the rear suspension and a few other weak spots like the clutch linkage, and had a fun street / strip car. Got rid of it in 74 and the next owner shoehorned a 351C in it and got really serious about racing it.

I had a 1975 2door in this color. 250 I6 with ” 3 on the tree” I was in tech school in Berlin NH at the time. Had 3 accidents with it. All not my fault! A town police cruiser ( Full-size LTD wagon), A mid 60’s Scout and a Ford pickup. Hit all 3 with the front bumper and left hardly a scratch ! All 3 pulled out in front of me during snowstorms. ( color blended into snow ?? ) Put 4 studded Firestone Town & Country snows on it and it would go anywhere. It was a tank. If you got on it just right you could slam it up into second and catch a little ” Chirp ” Maybe that is why I had to re-do the linkage under the hood on the column ? Hehehehehe

We had a ’74 Maverick 4-dor much like this Comet (ours was the LDO model with the vinyl roof, wide bodyside moldings and thick carpet inside). It too had the big 6 and manual brakes, though it did have power steering. It was just an awful car to drive in general. On the highway at any speed above 50 mph it felt very squirrelly despite the radial tires (the dreaded Firestone 500s were standard). It leaked wind and water, had terrible road noise, and just was a lousy vehicle overall. Good luck to whomever buys this.

For a low-mileage car that looks nice on the outside, the paint in the engine bay sure looks rough.

There are people who look fondly on the cars of the 70s. I always longed for a Pinto, Mustang II, VW Thing, Gremlin or first generation Ford Courier. This Comet may sell at a low enough price that someone will be able to enter the old-car hobby.

I had a ’74 2-door in white and tan. It was a 6 with power brakes and steering and the great C-4 automatic. It gave good gas mileage for its weight, was comfortable for me (6’1″) with the bucket seats, and was a good road car as well as town daily driver. I finally parted with it when the left and right rear frame boxes finally disintegrated, though the body was in fine shape. I think it is a much-maligned car, good for its time and price.

My first car in 1988 was a ’71 Comet with similar equipment, although a 2-dr. I drove it for about 6 months (even installed a stereo!) until it needed to be inspected. Our mechanic failed it due to rusty shock towers with the warning, ‘I wouldn’t go over 50 mph in this car. You could hit a pot-hole and end up with the front wheels pointing in the opposite directions.’

I got another car and the poor Comet was last seen at a local junk yard.

Memo to David Traver Adolphus: “…anything from England or Italy…” was/is a lousy car? Really? Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Jaguar, Triumph, MG, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alfa-Romeo, Lancia, Fiat, the list goes on. If that was a feeble attempt to be snarky, it was an epic fail; if it was serious, you’re just clueless. That said, the Maverick/Comet and its GM brother, the 68-up Nova, were America’s answer to the Trabant, only worse – at least no one ever had any pretensions Trabants were anything but awful.

These cars were not that bad, when you bear in mind what they were for. A lot of people put a lot of miles on them, and rust was not worse than for many cars in that era. No, I never owned one, but when they were new or just a few years old, they performed their duties well.

I “inherited”oneof these beauties but in Comet brown with a beige vinyl top. The car had the same 6 but with every conceivable extra. What a colossal waste! It was a banner day when mine finally went away.

This is weird. I had a strange dream this morning. I recently retired from government service. This morning I had a dream that I was called in to work in an emergency and somehow by mistake was given a brand new Ford vehicle to use. Black, small, compact but very nice. It was in a snowstorm and despite dangerous road hazards I was having a ball with the car. But my thoughts were how angry management would be to know I was assigned a nice new car. Such cars were only assigned to management to commute in. (LOL) Anyway when I woke up I thought the car had to be based on some old Ford vehicle I had driven at some time. First the name “Covina” came into mind. But I thought, isn’t that an English Ford? Then the Maverick came to mind. I had rented one in Florida years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. At 6’2″ (but admittedly a lot younger and thinner then) I remember it being very comfortable and fun to drive. When I checked my e-mail this morning and found this from Hemmings I had to think, wow, what a weird coincidence. If I was one of those big buck guys with 40 collector cars in a huge barn somewhere I’d buy this in a minute. Cars like these appeal to me, not the exotics. BTW- when I started government service we had one car in the unit. A new Maverick in this color. No one else ever got to use it, it was assigned to the director who use it to commute to work every day.

I had a 4 door 73″ Comet w/ a stock 302 and power brakes while in high school from 74′-76′. It was fast enough and it handled well enough for me to outrun/ outfox a SC Highway Patrollman on counrty roads.

My older sister had a red ’74 2 door,with a six and 3 speed,(I installed a floor shifter when the linkage wore through and left her with only 2 gears and no reverse) black interior with the split bench seat and REALLY tall gears. It’d do 70 in second gear. She went through a clutch about every year and a half. She loved that car,but the engine finally failed in New Mexico at about 270,000 miles so she sold it to the mechanic at the garage it was towed to. He had it running with a junkyard engine and drove it the next afternoon.

She always bought Fords and would keep them for only a few years. My father would always buy them from her giving her more than the dealer would on a trade in. He did that I believe 4 times.

When she traded this dog in he said no thanks. She traded it in for a Fox platform LTD. When she traded the LTD in, he again said no thanks. The LTD ran better, but the fit and finish of the Maverick was better.

When she had to give up driving he did buy her 92 or 93 Taurus. He drove that until he had to quit driving around 2006.

It seemed to me that nearly everyone in my hometown had a Maverick or a Comet when I was growing up, with one important detail: the local F-L-M dealer LOVED the Luxury Decor Option (LDO), so that’s pretty much all he ordered for inventory! Vinyl top, color-keyed wheel covers, wide body side moldings, and that gorgeous interior. It’s my understanding that the success of the LDO led directly to Ford’s introduction of the Granada. Wouldn’t mind having an LDO today, that’s for sure.

I find it strange then Ford dropped the Falcon moniker after 1970 but Mercury decided to keep the Comet name longer. The Maverick nameplate could had been used as a counterpart to the Plymouth Valiant Duster (only known as “Valiant Duster” for 1970 but for 1971, it was only Duster).

My mother had a green 1972 Comet. In 1979, after only 26,000 Km, it was full of holes. My mother asked me to wash her car. As a goo son, I went to a car wash. In 1979, the car was brushes did brush hard. Back at home, my mother scremmed: What did you do with my car?

The brushes complety removed the bottom of both front doors. They were rusted out. One yeart later, the both front shocks broke free, the inside fenders were gone.

Your right, the early 70s Fords had bad rust issues. Some say they started rusting when the paint dried at the factory. My buddy got a super low millage (around 23K) Grabber around 1990. Still on it’s factory D70-14 tires. It was used year round though, so had rot, bad. He bought a 77 4 door with decent fenders, and bad trans for parts. I got him 2 good fenders elsewhere, and took the 77, fixed and drove it for a while. After we fixed and repainted the Grabber he parked it for the winter and it kept rusting anyway. The 77 had almost rust, I am guessing that Ford switched to better steel or paint/primer maybe around 75 or 76. Too bad people were turned off Fords by then. This could have been the start of Honda and Toyota getting a foot hold in the USA. My dad had a bad 1970 Ford ragtop, and did not buy a Ford again for 25 years.

Back during the second gas “crisis” of 1978, I had a Ford Ranger XLT pickup with the 390 engine and power everything. I loved it, but it was a gas hog. So I decided to get a smaller, more economical car to drive and keep my truck too. I found a Maverick in the local paper for 700 bucks not too far from me and went to check it out. It was a six-banger, three-on-the- tree, and was that ugly mustard-yellow color that Ford painted half the cars they built in the 70’s. I offered the seller $600, but she would not budge from her asking price. So I eventually ended up trading my Ford pickup for a Datsun pickup – a huge mistake, but that’s another story. I’ve often wondered what would have happened with the Maverick if I had coughed up another $100 and driven it home that day.

My sister had a ’74 Maverick, which she promptly wrecked. Dad then bought her a ’76, which she again wrecked soon after. Dad thought that was enough, so we got the two cars together and pieced them together and made one Frankenstein car out of the two trashed Mavericks. The front blinkers were located BOTH in the valence panel below the bumper, AND in the grill next to the headlights. As with most hybrid experiments, and due to our lack of experience in mechanical engineerig, it passed away in it’s sleep after about 6 months. But we had a god time putting it together…..and I never thought a car could be twice as ugly as either one of those two cars, but this one sure was……….